Whitney + Layne’s wedding is a perfect example of a ballroom wedding done beautifully! Their minimal decorations and baby blue color scheme looks so Southern and delicate. It’s welcome change from some of the more glamorous receptions that often take place in ballrooms, especially since W + L decided to include yummy Oreo milkshakes in their dessert lineup.
Take a look through these lovely photos from Caroline Joy. I’ve already picked out a few sweet moments that will serve as my future wedding inspiration!
I saw my dress online on the Priscilla of Boston website. I loved it and subscribed to their email updates. Soon, I got an email that after 60 years of business they were closing! Of course, I freaked out and searched for the wedding dress in Dallas, Austin, and Houston stores. The Dallas store had it! But we weren’t engaged yet. After a little convincing my parents, my dad agreed that I was going to get married someday even if not to Layne in the next year. So he let me go get it with my future maid-of-honor!
Describe your wedding flowers: We used blue hydrangeas and white roses mostly. My bouquet was an assortment of blue flowers that the florist copied from a picture I found online. It was perfect!
I will never tire of prayer photos. This one by Caroline Joy is particularly sweet.
For Whitney + Layne, doing a “first look” was more advantageous than not. It was a special moment for the couple and allowed them to head straight to the reception to spend time with guests!
This is one of my favorite photos from this wedding! One of Whitney’s most memorable moments was walking down the aisle with her daddy.
Did you write your own vows? No, I knew I would cry too much and wouldn’t be able to get a word out! So we stuck with traditional, even though we both love to write.
What readings did you have at your ceremony? We had 1 John 4:7-12, 19. “We love because He first loved us.” This was especially important to us, because we know that we cannot love each other fully without experiencing the love of Jesus Christ. True love is sacrifice for one another, and the ultimate display of sacrifice was that of God sending his son to die for us as it says in 1 John.
Tell us about some of the songs you used throughout your wedding. I walked down the aisle to “Dawn” and “Stars and Butterflies” from the Pride and Prejudice movie. It is both my favorite movie and my favorite book, so I was so excited to use it in my wedding! It’s beautiful piano music. We used “Love on Top” by Beyonce for walking back up the aisle. We wanted to get the crowd excited for a celebration afterwards. We were finally married! Our first dance was “Marry Me” by Train. Slow, sweet, and sentimental. We practiced dancing to this on the rooftop of a parking garage at Baylor — I’ll never forget it!
Our wedding cake was blue with white flowers, and each layer was a different flavor. The wedding topper was a skiing bride and groom with parkas over their wedding clothes! The groom’s “cake” was his favorite dessert: Oreo milkshakes!
How did the two of you meet? Tell us your story. We met at a Christmas dance party during our freshman year at Baylor University. Layne and his friends choreographed a dance to “Forever” by Chris Brown and performed for the crowd. His dance moves were so good that I just HAD to talk to him. Ha! But we talked and became instant friends. We spent eight months of “friendship” playing basketball together, going dancing in any empty cul-de-sac we could find, skiing in New Mexico, and living our crazy freshman life at Baylor. He asked me to be his girlfriend that summer on the beach and under the stars of Pensacola, Florida.
Describe the proposal. Over Christmas break of senior year, we went with 10 of our friends to Layne’s cabin in New Mexico for a ski trip. In the middle of the last day at Taos, he wanted to hike to the top of the peak for pictures of the great view. It was beautiful! You could see all of Colorado and New Mexico from there. After a long trek in high altitudes with all of our friends, Layne dropped to one knee during a photo and told me for the first time that he loved me with all of his heart. Then, he asked me to be his wife. I said yes!
In what month did you get married? June 2012
How many guests attended your wedding? 300
Our favorite detail of the wedding was: The blue and white flowers and our coordinating leaving clothes! It was on accident, but my champagne BCBG dress matched his new champagne suit. He looked great.
What Southern details or traditions did you include in your celebration? What was Southern about your wedding? I loved our names monogrammed, so I used that as much as I could. I designed the napkins and the programs myself. I also loved our little barefoot flower girls with matching white and blue headbands that a lady in England made. The flower girls were two of my cousins Brighton and Morgan. The service was in a very old Baptist church with beautiful ceilings and stained glass. We took bridal portraits on a ranch in Texas, and our rehearsal dinner had a country band to which we two-stepped the night away. Since I’ve only lived in Mississippi and Texas, all I know are Southern weddings.
What range did your wedding budget fall into? We came in right at $25,000
What is the one thing you are most happy you splurged on? I am happy that I splurged on the dress and the bouquet. Let’s face it, those are the two things that are in the most of the pictures! I absolutely loved my flowers! They did a great job. Even though I had the dress about 9 months in advance, I saw many other dresses and never once regretted my decision. Other than that, the photography and video were both totally worth it. Those are the two things that will last the longest and help you remember every detail of the day you spent months planning for.
What advice do you have for folks currently planning a wedding? Don’t make it all about yourself. Yes, it is your wedding, but in the end, it’s still just another day, another 24 hours. Be excited to spend time celebrating with other people. Focus on the joy and happiness of the day. It’s finally here and it’s time to party! If something doesn’t go right, it’s not a big deal. Don’t sacrifice your kindness, attitude, joy, friendships, and others’ opinions of you for minute details.
What’s next for you as a couple? What are you looking forward to in the future? We are living in Ft. Worth for the summer and then moving to Louisville, Kentucky for masters degrees. We will both be attending Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Layne will get a master’s in Theology and I will get a masters in Counseling.
Love this wedding? Take look at these!
Hillary + Kyle’s monogrammed ballroom wedding.
Our Blue Wedding Details Pinterest Board
That picture of daddy giving his little girl away… oh, I cried. What a beautiful, special portrait.
Agreed, Taylor! Caroline did a fantastic job with this wedding!
Beautiful wedding! Loved hearing that you had 300 guests and still were able to come in at $25,000 on budget! Would love more information or any tips/tricks on how you made this possible. Planning a wedding on the same budget and guest count and am having trouble making it all work!
Thanks so much for sharing this gorgeous wedding! The details of this wedding were stunning. I loved Whitney’s advice to share. I look forward to keeping that in mind when it comes time to plan for such a special day!
Love this simple, yet elegant wedding! And that cake topper is just too funny.
I don’t understand the comment about ballroom receptions done right. Many ballroom receptions are beautiful. SWMag shows so many weddings with the same theme-outdoors, on a barn, rustic-y. As I bride-to-be I found that many ballrooms offered more affordable and practical options for brides (at hotels there’s usually no charge beyond food+drink, you can get married in the winter months, no chair and table rentals you don’t have to worry about bathrooms!). So I think SWMag should open up their minds some, also show a greater variety of weddings-the ‘fancier’ weddings are sometimes actually much easier to orchestrate then someone’s backyard :-)
Hi Lauren! Thank you so much for your feedback! I think what Nicole was getting at is that unfortunately, many hotel ballrooms have outdated carpets, lighting fixtures, furniture, wall coverings, etc. that don’t mesh with the simple, classic style our brides tend to love. That’s why we wanted to celebrate this one! We do our best to show a variety of weddings, and LOVE showing ballroom weddings!! Also, I totally agree with you that ballroom/hotel weddings can often be less expensive and easier to organize than outdoor weddings!